Currently, mobile content players receive content from a content server in HTML format via an RSS feed. This format only includes plain text, links to other URLs, embedded graphics, and hyperlinks to video and audio. The current model for RSS mobile content delivery is limited in that a majority of RSS feeds are not in a format that is easily reproduced on the various screen sizes of mobile devices. This can result in images, audio or video either being removed and replaced with links or moved to locations that are out of context with textual descriptions contained in the item. Video and audio files may not be in the proper format to be rendered on a mobile device and are therefore not rendered.
Some of the restrictions that result from the conventional approach mobile content player RSS feeds include: (a) images are shown as thumbnails and do not appear near text used as a header for those images; (b) images, video and audio have links placed in the text that requires the user to download this media separately, which practically makes the images, video and audio unavailable if the mobile device is out of network coverage; (c) proper video and audio format is needed from the RSS feed for the mobile device to render the video and audio; (d) users need to wait while downloading video or audio when the users access a RSS feed, which can take quite long based on network speeds in conventional mobile carrier networks; and (e) updated content in the RSS feed wastes bandwidth constantly sending updated versions of the content to the mobile device. Additionally, conventional models for allowing wireless device users in an organization to subscribe to RSS feeds leaves network administrators with little control over the content being delivered to the organization's wireless devices.
The conventional methods waste processing and battery resources on the wireless device while the user must take additional steps to retrieve the content using a pull mechanism, and also waste the user's time. Bandwidth is also wasted in the scenario of updated content being sent to the mobile device.
It would be desirable to have a method for delivering and receiving RSS feeds that addresses at least one of the above concerns.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.